Syberia 3 Reviews
Syberia 3 has been stuck in development hell for seven years, and the final product is a technical shamble that delivers next to no enjoyment, playing as if it needed to be there for three times as long.
I have no doubt that Syberia fans will lap up Syberia 3, but newcomers might wonder what all the fuss was all about.
Syberia 3 is just flat-out bad – an ugly, buggy, irritating, insulting title that should never have seen the light of day.
Some solid puzzles can't rescue what is an otherwise terrible adventure game.
Syberia 3 manages to squander all the series' charm with a low-stakes plot, clunky gameplay, and a number of distracting bugs. It is playable, but severely lacking in entertainment value.
The developers have been working hard to play catch up in a genre that they once held a title belt in. Microids had so much time to make something outstanding, and yet their effort feels half-hearted. Fans of the series will likely find the result of all those years to be underwhelming.
"I took no pleasure in writing this. In fact, writing this piece was almost as miserable an experience as playing through Syberia 3. It really pains me to say this. The series was among my favorites in the genre and I was looking forward to seeing it continue. It looks and feels as if it was designed and made in the mid-to-late 2000s, just as the genre was shifting toward 3D environments. However, this didn’t stop recent games such as Dreamfall Chapters to deliver a more polished experience (on the same engine, no less). If it were just an issue of graphics I wouldn’t be bothered but the lack of either time, resources or effort invested shows and permeates throughout all aspects of the game save overall world design and music. Frankly, I can’t fault it for lack of trying, I can see the game wanting to be good, but it’s just not enough. And sadly, patches can only solve a pittance of its issues."
Shallow, buggy and uninspired, Syberia 3 fails to live up to its predecessors.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Syberia 3 had great promise, and still does have plenty to offer - if a lot of the flaws and bugs can be tweaked post-launch by the developer, that is. However, in its current state, the only mildly intriguing story, surprisingly weak puzzles, and the shockingly poor controls, plus the numerous bugs and glitches encountered, make it very difficult for even the biggest Syberia fans to persevere through this third Kate Walker adventure.
While 13 years is certainly a long time to put a series on hold, perhaps another 13 could have been used to help Syberia 3 ready itself for release.
It's been 13 years since the release of Syberia 2, but third chapter doesn't look like something Sokal was thinking about all this time, hoping to create a truly special and memorable game. No matter how hard you try to hint at one more game in the series, even nostalgic fans won't be waiting for it after what they saw in Syberia 3.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Syberia 3 feels like a game that was made because everyone involved in the project felt an obligation to make it. It has its moments, and as a fan it's great to see Sokal's work reach a proper conclusion, but it's also difficult to see how this game will find an audience; even among existing fans of Syberia, tastes change over 13 years, and it's hard to see how this game has done anything to encourage people back for one more spin with Kate Walker.
Syberia 3's ample potential for greatness is squandered by an awkward translation, poor design, and a heaping helping of technical issues.
There is a fantastic game buried in there somewhere and one good patch and a price drop are all it needs to be worthwhile.
This game feels like it should've come out over a decade ago, and even then, it still wouldn't have been ready for release. Some sprawling mechanical puzzles, an intriguing world, and a solid soundtrack can't save Syberia 3 from its disappointing delivery. Poor writing and even worse voice acting make its humdrum story a chore to chew through. With major technical issues in tow along with too much errand-like gameplay, the series should've waved a final goodbye like its protagonist in her last outing.
Syberia was a series built around amazing puzzles and unique storytelling. Syberia 3 was an opportunity to bring all of that to a new generation. Unfortunately, it has remained mired in the pixel-hunting past, riddled with bugs, obtuse controls, and an uninspired storyline coupled with head-scratching voice work. I wanted to enjoy Syberia 3, but too many issues may leave this series stuck in the frozen snow.
For a game that relies on character interaction and puzzles to tell its story, Syberia 3 falls well short of being enjoyable and fails to deliver a captivating or impactful experience.
Syberia 3 is a game that looks and feels old, and not in a good way. The game is infested with technical issues like clunky controls, poor animation and mediocre voice acting that take away any amount of fun that could have been present. It is only barely recommended for those die-hard fans of Kate Walker too eager to keep up to date with her latest adventure; and I'm not sure how much of a fandom will be left after this title...
I actually volunteered to play Syberia 3 after watching the trailers. I even went so far as to play for a few hours on PlayStation 4 to see if the experience would be different. Sadly, it was not. It seemed like a game with such promise and that it would somehow be something more than what it ultimately became. To say that I am disappointed is to understate things greatly. Let’s hope that Microids lets the Syberia IP go, or at least wait a good long while before making another one that is worthy of the first two games because Syberia 3 isn’t it.
It took 13 years for Kate Walker to come back, but it might have been better for Syberia fans if she never did. Syberia 3 is a disappointing adventure game that retained nothing of the best features of the previous entries in the series, introducing so many changes that simply don't work as intended or are marred by poor design choices, making it a worthy purchase only for the most die-hard Kate Walker fans.